I've turned off RTE TV and Radio

legendary.xix

Following the disgraceful way Fr. Reynolds was treated by RTE, I've turned off from watching RTE, listening to RTE radio though I rarely did anyway and have stopped going on to their website for the latest news etc.

It might be a temporary measure. I didn't set out to do it. I've often read etc. of people being switched off in their droves etc. due to an incident.

Have RTE lost all credibility? There was the issue last year regards the reporting or lack of it when the cause of Gerry Ryan's death was revealed. They showed poor judgement then. This year they've shown an absolute dreadful lack of professionalism and accountability for their actions over the Fr. Reynolds affair. I thinks they are an absolute disgrace.

While raising questions about RTE, questions need to be asked about the media as a whole as well. The rest of the media have been very slow to ask hard questions. When it was revealed Fr. Reynolds had offered a paternity test and a resulting paternity test subsequently cleared his name. The rest of the media should have been on to that story with huge coverage and a number of pages of full page spreads on the story in the print media. Their reluctance to get onto this story does have to lead to questions being asked of the media as a whole as well.

texidub

Irish media consists of very small numbers of people, most of whom work in the same circles and so they know each other quite well. They have dragged each other down to a comfortable level of mediocrity which suits their lazy asses very well.

Don't forget RTE is mecca for many of these journalists (LOL) plus they are scared of offending each other... (as we all are with our mates, it should be said).

Ireland's tiny.. and the journalism is of regional rather than international quality... what do you expect though in such a small place? Most journalists with ambition/talent won't stay in Ireland too long... People like Vincent Browne (who was pissing off the powers that be long before he became the rambling old curmudgeon he is today) is one of the few notable exceptions to this.

I'm not scared of offending them though In fact I quite enjoy watching them get their expensive cocktails in a twist trying to defend the likes of RTE and the 'My what a lovely handbag!" that passes for so much so-called journalism in ireland today.

Colmo52

Mods... Can there just be 1 rte megabitch thread for people to moan in cos there are about 2 or 3 popping up every day lately??

Individual program threads are fine but there are too much 'RTE are rubbish/Tubridy/licence fee' threads.

texidub

Maybe a sub-forum as there many, many reasons to despise RTE and all that magical multiplicity would be lost in a single thread.

Fishooks12

These rants are getting more boring than the constant government bashing on AH

Ok you switched off RTE good for you. Now all aboard the next moral high horse

texidub

Maybe instead of being bored by people's criticisms and rants, you should take them on board and you know... IMPROVE?

Some people will never be satisfied for sure, but if you work in PRAVDA RTE you should be listening to people's criticism not telling them to eff off to another thread.

Just a crazy, crazy thought, I know. It's not as is people are forced to provide for your income under penalty of imprisonment and/or fines

* :pac: *

mikom

Colmo52 wrote: »

Individual program threads are fine but there are too much 'RTE are rubbish/Tubridy/licence fee' threads.

There's a very valid reason for that.
Money in..... shite out...... is not a nice equation.

texidub wrote: »

Maybe instead of being bored by people's criticisms and rants, you should take them on board and you know... IMPROVE?

Some people will never be satisfied for sure, but if you work in PRAVDA RTE you should be listening to people's criticism not telling them to eff off to another thread.

Just a crazy, crazy thought, I know. It's not as is people are forced to provide for your income under penalty of imprisonment and/or fines

Quoted for truth.

I notice a distinct lack of a "Talk to: RTE" section on boards.
Comments disallowed on many RTE youtube vids and the way in which they rule over their facebook pages comments will give you a clue as to why.
They are scared shitless now that everybody is allowed a voice due to the internet, forum, and all social media.

The days of pay up and shut up are coming to an end for RTE.

legendary.xix

texidub wrote: »

Maybe instead of being bored by people's criticisms and rants, you should take them on board and you know... IMPROVE?

Some people will never be satisfied for sure, but if you work in PRAVDA RTE you should be listening to people's criticism not telling them to eff off to another thread.

Just a crazy, crazy thought, I know. It's not as is people are forced to provide for your income under penalty of imprisonment and/or fines

* :pac: *

Thanks in some respects I guess! I'm sure we don't have time for every post we come across but if we want to comment, it's good to offer something to add to the debate.

In regards to texidub fine contribution, is there any market in the country for media which can distance themselves from the rest?

Zombrex

legendary.xix wrote: »

While raising questions about RTE, questions need to be asked about the media as a whole as well. The rest of the media have been very slow to ask hard questions. When it was revealed Fr. Reynolds had offered a paternity test and a resulting paternity test subsequently cleared his name. The rest of the media should have been on to that story with huge coverage and a number of pages of full page spreads on the story in the print media. Their reluctance to get onto this story does have to lead to questions being asked of the media as a whole as well.

It is not the media that need to be asking the hard questions, it is the public.

The question being do we want investigative journalism in this country, or do we not. Because if we loose investigative journalism in RTE that is pretty much it. You will be left with TV3 and the tabloids only reporting on sensationalist crime family stories years after their crimes, and the occasional Irish Times piece with serious left wing bias. Serious investigative journalism is dead in the Independent papers.

It is impossible to have serious investigative journalism without the occasional mistake or reporting on false information. That is simply a fact of life, journalists by their nature make judgement calls as to whether a source or collection of sources can be trusted, and they will inevitably make the wrong judgement on that.

The idea that they should be fired because of this is frankly ridiculous. It would destroy journalism, no journalist is going to risk trusting any source, no matter how supported their accusation may appear, if they are fired if they get it wrong. They will play it so safe as to not report anything.

Likewise holding or shelving any program or article because someone who is being investigated decides at the last minute to co-operate simply gives every person being investigated an easy way to halt or remove a negative piece against them, refuse to co-operate until the last minute and they say you will. You can of course always go back on this after you have got the article or piece delayed.

So again the population need to have a serious think about what they want from RTE, who are after all our broadcaster.

All the people who complain about license fees and how they download all their TV from the Internet need to ask where they expect to get robust journalism in Ireland from? The Internet? American news organisations?

If we don't want investigative journalism, if we are happy simply to give up on the media exposing scandals (and lets not forget the ton of scandals Primetime and other RTE journalists have exposed) fair enough so long as we understand what that means.

I fear though that like so many populist movements and knee jerk reactionary responses that destroy sound sensible institutions, people will only wake up to what it is like without a proper press after the fact, when we have disbanded the only serious independent news organisations in the country and we are left with corporate and tabloid gossip and agenda driven op-eds instead of robust journalism.

At which point I'll be moving to Canada.

mikom

Zombrex wrote: »

At which point I'll be moving to Canada.

You'll enjoy it over there.
You won't need to fork out for a radio or TV licence as they haven't got one.

Cavehill Red

Zombrex wrote: »

Because if we loose investigative journalism in RTE that is pretty much it. You will be left with TV3 and the tabloids only reporting on sensationalist crime family stories years after their crimes, and the occasional Irish Times piece with serious left wing bias. Serious investigative journalism is dead in the Independent papers.

Rarely has so much bullcrap been shoehorned into a single paragraph. I salute you, sir, and wish you all the best in your new Canadian life.

Zombrex

mikom wrote: »

You'll enjoy it over there.
You won't need to fork out for a radio or TV licence as they haven't got one.

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Rarely has so much bullcrap been shoehorned into a single paragraph. I salute you, sir, and wish you all the best in your new Canadian life.

A lot of bluster but nothing disputing what I said. Interesting.

Perhaps one of you would like to explain where investigative journalism goes without RTE? To TV3? Perhaps e3, in between Family Guy and American Dad reruns.

Or perhaps you don't care.

mikom

Zombrex wrote: »

Perhaps one of you would like to explain where investigative journalism goes without RTE?

Perhaps you would like to explain where investigative journalism goes with RTE?

The curious case of Pamela Izevbekhai


After hours of sifting through paperwork for evidence that a child named Elizabeth Izevbekhai had ever existed, Irish officials and a garda detective inspector were stumped. Last month, they visited a birth registry office in Lagos, Nigeria, to determine if the child's birth in 1993 was listed. After finding no record of it, they went to a separate office to check if her death 17 months later had been catalogued, and searched for burial details. Again, they found nothing.

The story Pamela Izev­bekhai had told the Irish authorities about her tragic infant's death from com­- plications of female genital mutilation (FGM) wasn't standing up. Instead, it was unravelling fast. In her defence, Izevbekhai's supp­ort­ers maintain that in Nigeria, unlike Ireland and other western countries, not all births and deaths are registered. "But that wasn't the only part of her story that didn't stand up. None of it did. The birth, the death, the burial, the doctor's evidence," said a source.

Before the trawl through paperwork in Lagos, the detective inspector from the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) and Irish embassy and department of justice officials based in Lagos made an unannounced visit to consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Joseph Unokanjo. He's the medical director at Isioma Hospital, Lagos.

"It's not a hospital like the ones we're used to. It's basically a GP's office with two rooms. It's in an old colonial suburb of Lagos. It's on the second floor of a building and there's a shanty shop at the front of it," said a source.

The doctor was shown pictures of Pamela and confirmed he had met her on several occasions and treated her for the birth of her daughter Naomi. But he knew nothing about the supposed birth and death of another child named Elizabeth. "He was quite adamant that her daughter Naomi [now 7] was her first child. As a gynaecologist, he was able to definitively say that she had never had a child before that. Pamela has spoken about leaving her son behind when she fled to Ireland. But as far as we can tell, that son is her husband's child, but she helped to bring him up."

Dr Unokanjo was shown an affidavit purported to have been sworn and signed by him in 2006 and a certificate of the cause of death, which purported to come from Isioma hospital in 1994. He was perplexed and said the signatures were not his and the documents were forgeries. The garda and government officials believed him – the hospital where they met was different to the address and phone number Izevbekhai had supplied on the documentation she presented.

"He was a real gentleman; he's a man in his 60s. When we heard the interview replayed on RTÉ with a doctor they believe to be Dr Unokanjo, we laughed out loud. It's a completely different man who's a couple of decades younger," added the source.

Unokanjo denied that he was ever interviewed by RTÉ radio or any media organisation in Ireland. In the RTÉ interview aired in 2005, a man claiming to be Unokanjo confirmed Elizabeth's death from complications of FGM. Philip Boucher-Hayes, the RTÉ broadcaster who conducted the radio interview, has said he obtained the phone number for Isioma hospital independently and believed he spoke to the doctor. Sligo-based radio station Ocean FM also aired an apparent interview with Dr Unokanjo in January 2007. The man in it reiterates what RTÉ was told, that the infant Elizabeth died at his hospital. In another bizarre twist, the man on the RTÉ interview and the person speaking on Ocean FM are not the same person, easily ascertained after listening to both interviews. "It's getting beyond belief at this stage. Now we have three doctors. Two fake ones that spoke to RTÉ and Ocean FM and the real one that the Irish authorities met last month," said a source.

The 'real Dr Unokanjo' has not helped his own reputation – or the Department of Justice – by demanding money from Irish newspapers that have contacted him since the controversy over the fake documents emerged two weeks ago. "If he's asking for money from newspapers for his story, how can we believe anything he says?" said Rosanna Flynn of Residents Against Racism.

Other sources dismissed the request for payment for his story as another cultural misunderstanding. "He never asked for money when we visited him at his hospital. He seems to believe that western media will pay for his story – that's how he believes the media works over here," said a garda source. "We accept the version of events he gave us completely. He was annoyed that someone had forged documents and put his name on them. He was more than happy to provide us with an affidavit outlining his position. In fact, he insisted on it."

Unokanjo recalled that Izevbekhai telephoned him at some stage over the last few years requesting him to issue a death certificate about a dead child he knew nothing about to enable her asylum application in Ireland. He said he immediately refused.

This could have serious consequences for Pamela Izev­bekhai. If the Supreme Court accepts 'the real Dr Unokanjo's' affidavit as truth when it is submitted to the court on 1 May, the Nigerian woman could face perjury charges for deliberately misleading the court or even criminal charges.

Her supporters realise that her chances of successfully appealing her deportation order are now slim. Their last role of the dice will be to ask the minister for justice to intervene and reverse the deportation order, a scenario described as "nonsensical" considering she has admitted to using false documents.

Public support is also waning. With a full legal team, more than 22 high court appearances and the cost of sending a garda detective inspector on a three-day trip to Nigeria last month, the tab the taxpayer has picked up for Izevbekhai's case has reached €500,000.

Since the fake documentation scandal emerged, Izevbekhai has maintained that Elizabeth did exist but died from complications of FGM and that her husband's family insisted the illegal procedure be carried out on the infant. She insists that her daughters Naomi (7) and Jemima (6) face the same fate if returned to Nigeria.

Izevbekhai lived with her husband Tony in the city of Ibadan, about 90 minutes drive from Lagos. The family were by no means impoverished. They had four household maids and a comfortable existence.

Why, then, did she flee the country to live in poky asylum accommodation without her husband and a weekly allowance of €19.10? Because of the threat of FGM, her supporters say. The authorities maintain it's for an improved quality of life.

A lot of questions remain unanswered about the curious case of Pamela Izevbekhai. No one has yet been able to track down her husband's parents and discover whether it would still be traditional for the family to carry out genital mutilation. The Nigerian government told a UN committee last year that the prevalence rate of FGM in the country was 32%, and that in some regions the figure was as high as 65%. These facts cannot be ignored.

It's a fact that many asylum seekers issued with deportation orders often disappear rather than sign on at immigration headquarters on the date of their deportation. These people sometimes remain living here under the radar, working illegally. Others leave the country and travel to somewhere else in Europe. Neither of these is an option for Izevbekhai. She became a cause célèbre and pin-up girl for the scourge of FGM. She's not just recognisable in Ireland but in many other European countries too.

In the middle of this publicity storm, people have largely forgotten about her two daughters, innocent of all that's happened since their arrival more than four years ago to a country they now regard as home. "There is no doubt she'll be deported at this stage," said a source. "It's a matter of when rather than if. And there'll be no coming back for Pamela."

The Fake Doctor's Report

The Sunday Tribune has obtained the fake doctor's report Pamela Izevbekhai presented to the authorities that states her daughter Elizabeth died from complications of female genital mutilation (FGM).

RTÉ broadcast an interview with a man claiming to be Dr Joseph Unokanjo in 2005 and again replayed it last week. This newspaper has established that the man purporting to be Dr Unokanjo reads verbatim from this fake document (pictured right) that Izevbekhai now admits is a forgery.

Philip Boucher-Hayes is the RTÉ broadcaster who conducted the radio interview. Boucher-Hayes has sworn an affidavit supporting Izevbekhai's claims for her legal case. He said through a spokeswoman last week: "In 2005, I rang international directory enquiries and got a number for the hospital in which Dr Unokanjo works. I rang the hospital and was put through to the person whose interview was aired." A phone number for Isioma hospital in Lagos was not available from international directory enquiries when contacted on several occasions this week. The address on the fake document gives a fake address and phone number for the hospital. The hospital's actual address is 11 James Robertson Street, Surulere, Lagos.

In his sworn affidavit, Boucher Hayes said that when he telephoned Dr Unokanjo back some time later, he alleged to have been visited by a Nigerian army captain who threatened him for speaking publicly in support of Pamela Izevbekhai. Boucher Hayes was unavailable for comment.



Source (http://www.tribune.ie/article/2009/apr/05/the-curious-case-of-pamela-izevbekhai/)

Proper investigative journalism in Ireland is extremely rare.
Rarer still in RTE it seems........ and Father Reynolds will vouch for that.

The future is certainly not at the relic that is RTE.

goose2005

Zombrex wrote: »

A lot of bluster but nothing disputing what I said. Interesting.

Perhaps one of you would like to explain where investigative journalism goes without RTE? To TV3? Perhaps e3, in between Family Guy and American Dad reruns.

Or perhaps you don't care.

into newspapers?

A Disgrace

Zombrex wrote: »

A lot of bluster but nothing disputing what I said. Interesting.

Perhaps one of you would like to explain where investigative journalism goes without RTE? To TV3? Perhaps e3, in between Family Guy and American Dad reruns.

Or perhaps you don't care.

The trouble with boards is that there's no age limit, you could literally be arguing with a 12 year old!

Speaking of which, don't mind Mikom, he likes to talk about such and such being a waste of 'our' money and the like, yet he doesn't even pay the licence fee... Anyway, I promised I wouldn't engage with him again so I'd better run.

legendary.xix

Zombrex wrote: »

The question being do we want investigative journalism in this country, or do we not. Because if we loose investigative journalism in RTE that is pretty much it. You will be left with TV3 and the tabloids only reporting on sensationalist crime family stories years after their crimes, and the occasional Irish Times piece with serious left wing bias. Serious investigative journalism is dead in the Independent papers.

How long does it take to get a paternity test taken and get the results? If a man is being accused of something and offering to take a test, surely that should've been done? If someone in that situation is dragging the issue as a result you could have a point but in this case RTE were totally reckless. Accusing the man of rape was a very serious allegation. Correct procedure had to have been take in that case.

You raise good points as well though. Fair play. We do need investigative journalism. What happened this man though was a disgrace. It should never have happened and was a complete failure by RTE. Also there response to the situation has also been a disgrace. They had to be pushed all the way and were disgrace with their delay and lack of responses to the man's solicitor. Even after the programme was aired, a paternity test could've been taken far sooner than occured. The before and after of the show by RTE really was terrible.

I'm not sure on your comment "It is not the media that need to be asking the hard questions, it is the public. "

Where did the public get a voice in all this. When the story broke that the paternity test cleared the man accused, the media should've been on that story like a shot. The fact that none were should lead to the public asking hard questions of the media.

Zombrex

mikom wrote: »

Perhaps you would like to explain where investigative journalism goes with RTE?

The same place it was already, uncovering the scandals that have already shocked the Irish people.

Perhaps you would prefer that we didn't know about these things, ignorance is bliss and all that.

Zombrex

legendary.xix wrote: »

How long does it take to get a paternity test taken and get the results? If a man is being accused of something and offering to take a test, surely that should've been done?

Long enough that it would have stopped the show being broadcast as far as I can tell from the time line suggested in the Irish Times.

You can't have a situation where every investigation has to be shelved because at the last minute the person being investigated comes forward with an offer to co-operate? That quickly becomes unworkable.

legendary.xix wrote: »

If someone in that situation is dragging the issue as a result you could have a point but in this case RTE were totally reckless. Accusing the man of rape was a very serious allegation. Correct procedure had to have been take in that case.

Yes but you are saying that in hind-sight. Just because Fr. Reynolds offered to take a paternity test doesn't bind him to actually doing that, nor does it mean the paternity test will come back negative. RTE could have pulled the program and then never got the paternity test or they could have been vindicated by the test. But because of schedules the program might never have been shown again. It is not easy to just slot a program like Primetime back into the TV schedules once it has been pulled.

In which case it becomes a tactic that anyone being investigated just has to promise to co-operate at the last minute, the program gets shelves and then if it turns out that they in fact don't co-operate the program might never get shown.

It is unworkable. RTE have a responsibility to give anyone they are investigating reasonable time to respond to the charges put to them, at the various enquiries into RTE's conduct certainly have to look at whether or not RTE did this and whether or not that time period was reasonable.

But if it was and the person drags their feet anyway and only comes forward when such co-operation requires that the program be shelves that is not something RTE, or any journalist, can gave in to.

legendary.xix wrote: »

I'm not sure on your comment "It is not the media that need to be asking the hard questions, it is the public. "

Where did the public get a voice in all this.

The public have a voice and they are currently using that to call for all the journalists to be fired and even RTE itself to be disbanded.

Firing journalists because they trust sources that ultimately burn them will simply result in journalists never trusting sources, which effectively ends investigative journalism in this country.

Is that what people want?

legendary.xix wrote: »

When the story broke that the paternity test cleared the man accused, the media should've been on that story like a shot. The fact that none were should lead to the public asking hard questions of the media.

It was reported in all media as far as I remember, so I'm not sure what this refers to?

legendary.xix

Zombrex wrote: »

It was reported in all media as far as I remember, so I'm not sure what this refers to?

It hadn't gotten the coverage of recent days. It was reported the priest was cleared but that was it. There was no real substance to the reports and hard questions asked of RTE. The first time the hard questions started to be asked was last weekend and then the article in the Irish Times which seemed to prompt the government to push for an inquiry. The media have been very slow on this story.

Is it that RTE lead the news agenda in this country? Is it the circle of media that they don't ask hard questions of each other? Ordinary people in regular every day conversation have been calling it a disgrace for weeks. The man was wrongly of accused of something he did not do. No hard questions were asked for weeks.

wandatowell

Following the disgraceful way Arsene Wenger was treated by RTE and in particular Eamon Dunphy, I've turned off from watching RTE, listening to RTE radio though I rarely did anyway and have stopped going on to their website for the latest news etc.

It might be a temporary measure. I didn't set out to do it. I've often read etc. of people being switched off in their droves etc. due to an incident.

Have RTE lost all credibility? There was the issue last year regarding the reporting or lack of it when the cause of Arsenals lack of form was revealed. They showed poor judgement then. This year they've shown an absolute dreadful lack of professionalism and accountability for their actions over the Arsenal poor early season performance. I thinks they are an absolute disgrace.

While raising questions about RTE, questions need to be asked about the media as a whole as well. The rest of the media have been very slow to ask hard questions. The rest of the media should have been on to that story with huge coverage and a number of sports pages of full page spreads on the story in the print media. Their reluctance to get onto this story does have to lead to questions being asked of the media as a whole as well.

Desire2

Fishooks12 wrote: »

Now all aboard the next

moral

high horse

Moral and the Catholic Church have become a contradiction in terms,mainly down to the CC's own actions(or lack of).i was raised Catholic BTW.

The OP is quite right, as are those who say backing off from investigative journalism by RTE would be wrong.

The Catholic Church refused to confront its issues,let's hope the investigation into Primetime does not.

the church's attitude of cowardice and cover ups made it carte blanch for any lazy journalist to pick on an innocent and broadcast nonsense.

the church has only itself to blame that another sex scandal went almost unquestioned and was not more closely scrutinised before broadcast.

mikom

A Disgrace wrote: »

The trouble with boards is that there's no age limit, you could literally be arguing with a 12 year old!

Or an eighty year old with gra for the golden days of RTE.
It works both ways.

A Disgrace wrote: »

Speaking of which, don't mind Mikom, he likes to talk about such and such being a waste of 'our' money and the like, yet he doesn't even pay the licence fee...

I'm not gay either, but I'd like to think I can express a view on gay adoption as well.
That little bit of paper you pay RTE for does not give you a louder voice than me.
Not that Montrose would listen to you any way.

A Disgrace wrote: »

Anyway, I promised I wouldn't engage with him again so I'd better run.

Time to update the blog?

Zombrex wrote: »

The same place it was already, uncovering the scandals that have already shocked the Irish people.

The Father Reynolds and Pamela Izevbekhai reporting by RTE shocked me alright.

Zombrex wrote: »

Perhaps you would prefer that we didn't know about these things, ignorance is bliss and all that.

Yes ignorance was bliss when RTE it cut away from its coverage of the press conference at which details of Ireland’s application for a bailout were revealed just as Vincent Browne's questioning of Taoiseach Brian Cowen began.
Sky news and TV3 picked up that "ignorant" gauntlet and broadcast it in full.
Public service broadcasting at its finest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6dzZjVTyBA

legendary.xix wrote: »

Is it that RTE lead the news agenda in this country? Is it the circle of media that they don't ask hard questions of each other? Ordinary people in regular every day conversation have been calling it a disgrace for weeks. The man was wrongly of accused of something he did not do. No hard questions were asked for weeks.

This......... exactly.

Zombrex

mikom wrote: »

Yes ignorance was bliss when RTE it cut away from its coverage of the press conference at which details of Ireland’s application for a bailout were revealed just as Vincent Browne's questioning of Taoiseach Brian Cowen began.
Sky news and TV3 picked up that "ignorant" gauntlet and broadcast it in full.
Public service broadcasting at its finest.

And...? That is your example of how TV3 are a better news organisation than RTE, a cut away from a news conference ... jesus christ :rolleyes:

mikom

Zombrex wrote: »

jesus christ

He can't hear you calling.......... but you know that of course.

I never said "better", now stop making false claims.

thebman

Zombrex wrote: »

The same place it was already, uncovering the scandals that have already shocked the Irish people.

Perhaps you would prefer that we didn't know about these things, ignorance is bliss and all that.

If the cost of that is people going to jail for owning a TV then yes we will have to do without.

If the cost is shutting down other hospitals because we can't tax anymore while we still have an RTE license fee then the answer is again yes.

The idea that nobody would step in to fill this void if RTE disappeared is laughable at best TBH.

The equivalent of saying if the Burger King on O'Connell street went, where would people go to get their burgers TBH. There is no such thing as competition or filling the void left when another company disappears in your little world I guess.

Desire2

I see Sean Gallagher has a gripe about RTE editorial control as well.
If his allegations are true it is a very serious matter to add to the others.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/1128/1224308221671.html

This is just not good enough.
Heads should roll and some way must be found to make sure Govt has no control over the State broadcaster other than matters of National security.

I think the point that RTE cut away from VB was wrong by RTE.

Anybody remember the grovelling apology because News showed the paintings of Cowen?

I believe that 'Fr Ted' (Dermot Morgan) had a Radio show that was hilarious but too close to the bone for FF and was scrapped.

A major overhaul is needed.
I still think Election coverage and investigative journalism should have its home in RTE.
TV3 could not possibly meet the costs or devote the time RTE should,can and have done in the past.they have many fine journalists as well as the ones who have wrecked any credibility News and current affairs had.

Zombrex

mikom wrote: »

I never said "better", now stop making false claims.

Oh right, it was just a random example with no point or reason. My mistake.

Zombrex

thebman wrote: »

If the cost of that is people going to jail for owning a TV then yes we will have to do without.

If the cost is shutting down other hospitals because we can't tax anymore while we still have an RTE license fee then the answer is again yes.

The idea that nobody would step in to fill this void if RTE disappeared is laughable at best TBH.

The equivalent of saying if the Burger King on O'Connell street went, where would people go to get their burgers TBH. There is no such thing as competition or filling the void left when another company disappears in your little world I guess.

Oh there would be lots of competition for the spectrum, I've no doubt about that. But your analogy with Burger King is spot on, because the replacement television cannel would be Friends re-runs and what ever other mindless fodder they could afford from the States, fast food television.

Why bother with quality news and investigative reporting when you can make money just being another e3?

Zombrex

Desire2 wrote: »

I see Sean Gallagher has a gripe about RTE editorial control as well.

While there are serious questions that need to be asked about the Reynolds case, including what is the standard required to make public allegations that can seriously damage someone's reputation, and how much journalists can rely on sources rather than factual evidence, the Gallagher thing is just opportunistic nonsense. Gallagher didn't lose the election because of a tweet, he lost the election because he was taking money for FF

mikom

Zombrex wrote: »

Oh right, it was just a random example with no point or reason. My mistake.

Apology accepted.